>Does anyone have experience with the legal issues of using fonts in
>programs. Do they have copyright? What about distributing fonts with
>programs? What hapens if you're using a font thats not installed on
>the computer running the machine?
Fonts are copyrighted. However, strictly speaking, it is the name of
the font rather than the actual font itself that is copyrighted. So,
technically, you could duplicate a font and distribute it under a
different name. This is being looked at by various copyright
authorities across the world, so don't trust this as a reliable
tactic! Ethically of course, this "copy & rename" strategy is a
no-no!
Most fonts are licensed based on up to 5 users being connected to a
common printer (historically, fonts were licensed for printers rather
than the computers). So if you had a workgroup of 15 people sharing
a common printer, then you'd need 3 licence packs. A "font" is
actually a "typeface" and if you buy a "font", you'll end up having
to buy it either as a "family" or a series of different "weights"
such as Roman, Italic, Bold, Bold-Italic, Light, Normal, Ultra, etc.
It's not uncommon ending up paying $150+ for a full "font" and this
could be used by up to 5 people sharing a common printer. You are
not licensed to distribute fonts!
If you use a font that is not on a users' machine, then a substitute
will be used and this will almost certainly disrupt your screen
layouts. This is why I tend to stick to the boring but always
available Arial and Times New Roman. There are other "standard"
fonts, but these depend on the version of the OS your end user is
using (the standard fonts differ between versions of MacOS and
versions of Windows).
Cheers
Peter
--
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Peter Reid
Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK
Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576
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